Shadows of the Night

Sleep.

As humans we need it. It's up there with food, water and shelter. While lack of sleep can't directly kill you, there's like a 1,000 ways to die that lack of sleep can help cause.

None of us get enough. The whole damn country is sleep deprived.

And if you are a caregiver, sleep can be even more elusive and important. Caregiving induced depression, insomnia and anxiety can start a vicious doom loop.

You can't sleep because you're depressed; and you're depressed because you can't sleep.

And the lack of sleep makes your anxiety ratchet up to where you are seeing noises and you worry about EVERYTHING.

When your loved one doesn't pick up the phone you go to the worst case scenario immediately in your mind. You can't even fathom that they just might be in the bathroom; nope they are dead. You are convinced of it. Because her cat assassinated her by chewing the cord on Lil Bit's thermonuclear electric blanket that you saw the cat playing with when you left for the evening. Seriously. Been there. Imagined that.

Every time a doctor calls it is because your loved one now has some exotic disease that has never been heard of, is genetic and you now have too. Which goes against everything that Lil Bit has taught me about medicine - "just because you hear hoof beats don't assume it is zebras; the logical answer is almost always THE answer."

And, yet, I can't keep my mind from racing, driving off a cliff into the dark place and never letting me sleep again.

My trouble with sleep goes back to childhood. I've never been able to sleep well. But caregiving kicked into a whole new league. We went from playing in the MLS to the Bundesliga.

I fight going to sleep every night unless I am so tired that I am a zombie.

When my eyes close and blessed sleep is coming the shadows come to life.

I have always had night terrors and bad dreams. Dreams so vivid that hit in that twilight zone between awake and sleep coma. Dreams that you wake up screaming from; drenched in sweat and afraid to go back to dreamland. Disaster movies of dreams that would impress Micheal Bay.

One night The Saint had to shake me awake because I was screaming so loud that he heard me all the way downstairs where he was finishing a movie and the dogs were losing their minds from the sound. Even when he got me awake I was still convinced that there was someone in the room in the corner that was watching me and would not go back to sleep until every light was on upstairs.

I have been chased, stabbed, burnt, poisoned, drowned, and killed many, many other ways in my dreams.

The world has frozen, exploded like Alderaan, burnt up, and been swallowed by a giant fish in my head at night.

A lot of this is probably due to an overactive imagination and very, very, very poor choices of reading or viewing materials ingested right before going to bed. It's also due to stress, depression and anxiety; much of that driven by caregiving.

I repeat this because here is the point...get help because you. Need. Sleep. To help your loved one.

My night terrors are a warning sign for me. Telling me it is time to talk to someone. If I find myself baking in the middle of the night to avoid going to sleep it's time to get whatever the latest setback, disaster or frustration is off my chest and sorry coworkers who love the delicious insomnia side effects. Time to bring in the big guns.

Because nothing scares away the shadows of the night more than throwing open the curtains to your soul and letting the light in.